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John G Paton's Father

A Key to His Courage

John G. Paton was a missionary to the New Hebrides, today called
Vanuatu, in the South Seas. He was born in Scotland in 1824. I gave
my Pastors' Conference message about him because of the courage he
showed throughout his 82 years of life. When I dug for the reasons
he was so courageous, one reason I found was the deep love he had
for his father.

The tribute Paton pays to his godly father is, by itself, worth
the price of his Autobiography, which is still in print. Maybe it's
because I have four sons (and Talitha), but I wept as I read this
section. It filled me with such longing to be a father like
this.

There was a "closet" where his father would go for prayer as a
rule after each meal. The eleven children knew it and they
reverenced the spot and learned something profound about God. The
impact on John Paton was immense.

Though everything else in religion were by some unthinkable
catastrophe to be swept out of memory, were blotted from my
understanding, my soul would wander back to those early scenes, and
shut itself up once again in that Sanctuary Closet, and, hearing
still the echoes of those cries to God, would hurl back all doubt
with the victorious appeal, "He walked with God, why may not I?"
(Autobiography, p. 8)

How much my father's prayers at this time impressed me I can
never explain, nor could any stranger understand. When, on his
knees and all of us kneeling around him in Family Worship, he
poured out his whole soul with tears for the conversion of the
Heathen world to the service of Jesus, and for every personal and
domestic need, we all felt as if in the presence of the living
Savior, and learned to know and love him as our Divine friend."
(Autobiography, p. 21)

One scene best captures the depth of love between John and his
father, and the power of the impact on John's life of
uncompromising courage and purity. The time came for the young
Paton to leave home and go to Glasgow to attend divinity school and
become a city missionary in his early twenties. From his hometown
of Torthorwald to the train station at Kilmarnock was a 40-mile
walk. Forty years later, Paton wrote,

My dear father walked with me the first six miles of the way.
His counsels and tears and heavenly conversation on that parting
journey are fresh in my heart as if it had been but yesterday; and
tears are on my cheeks as freely now as then, whenever memory
steals me away to the scene. For the last half mile or so we walked
on together in almost unbroken silence - my father, as was often
his custom, carrying hat in hand, while his long flowing yellow
hair (then yellow, but in later years white as snow) streamed like
a girl's down his shoulders. His lips kept moving in silent prayers
for me; and his tears fell fast when our eyes met each other in
looks for which all speech was vain! We halted on reaching the
appointed parting place; he grasped my hand firmly for a minute in
silence, and then solemnly and affectionately said: "God bless you,
my son! Your father's God prosper you, and keep you from all
evil!"

Unable to say more, his lips kept moving in silent prayer; in
tears we embraced, and parted. I ran off as fast as I could; and,
when about to turn a corner in the road where he would lose sight
of me, I looked back and saw him still standing with head uncovered
where I had left him - gazing after me. Waving my hat in adieu, I
rounded the corner and out of sight in instant. But my heart was
too full and sore to carry me further, so I darted into the side of
the road and wept for time. Then, rising up cautiously, I climbed
the dike to see if he yet stood where I had left him; and just at
that moment I caught a glimpse of him climbing the dike and looking
out for me! He did not see me, and after he gazed eagerly in my
direction for a while he got down, set his face toward home, and
began to return - his head still uncovered, and his heart, I felt
sure, still rising in prayers for me. I watched through blinding
tears, till his form faded from my gaze; and then, hastening on my
way, vowed deeply and oft, by the help of God, to live and act so
as never to grieve or dishonor such a father and mother as he had
given me. (pp. 25-26)

The impact of his father's faith and prayer and love and
discipline was immeasurable. O fathers, read and be filled with
longing.

With you in the battle,

Pastor John

John Piper (@JohnPiper) is founder and teacher of desiringGod.org and chancellor of Bethlehem College & Seminary. For 33 years, he served as pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota. He is author of more than 50 books.

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